Winter Springs Boulevard

Forget the joke possibilities; after three hours of debating a proposed mall access road, Winter Springs commissioners made a correct decision: Study it some more.Opening a road to Winter Springs Boulevard from a proposed regional mall is nothing to decide without knowing all the facts; commissioners don't yet have enough.Should the opening be harmful, as most residents of the sprawling, upscale Tuscawilla development seem to think, a fine neighborhood could be overrun by traffic. But should the road somehow be blocked, a major economic development could go the way of the wind.

This is a story about how something so mundane, so seemingly innocuous can grow into a big and expensive problem. It's a story about how many problems, especially in the world of local government, can be prevented if the right backstops are in place. How we could have saved months of homeowners worrying about an unexpected bill for thousands of dollars, tense City Commission meetings and even a few rolls of yellow caution tape if things had been done properly from the start. And it's a tale of why the election-year mantra that government regulations do more harm than good isn't all it's cracked up to be. The story starts with a brick wall — the kind that surround subdivisions throughout Central Florida suburbs.

After three hours of debate Monday night, city commissioners decided what to do about the controversy over a proposed mall access road: Study it.Commissioners decided to do a traffic study on placing an entrance road to a proposed regional mall on, over or near Winter Springs Boulevard.A. Duda & Sons, which owns the land north of Red Bug Lake Road where the 150-shop mall is slated to go, wants permission to cross a 10-foot conservation easement that would clear the way for an entrance onto Winter Springs Boulevard or State Road 426.The access road, Duda representatives say, is critical to major mall tenants, such as Burdines, Dillard's and Gayfers.

5:45 a.m. -- In the silent darkness, I stop in front of Joan's house in the Tuscawilla area of Winter Springs. Mary Lou is already there, preparing for the day's journey, adjusting her Red Sox cap and flashing red light on her left arm. They want to use just their first names today. 5:50 -- Joan steps outside, ready to hit the trail, Winter Springs Boulevard. After our greetings, we're on our way. But this is more than just a morning walk for exercise. It has become a mission -- a mission to keep Winter Springs Boulevard clean, daily picking up bottles, cans, wrappers, snuff cans, plastic forks, T-shirts, cigarette packs and other litter.

The city has dropped plans to condemn a strip of land along Winter Springs Boulevard for a secondary mall entrance.Seminole County commissioners' approval of a proposed bridge from State Road 426 over the Central Florida GreeneWay into the parking area for The Marketplace at Oviedo Crossing does away with the need for a mall entrance from Winter Springs Boulevard.Many Tuscawilla residents objected to a mall entrance from Winter Springs Boulevard, saying it would encourage cut-though traffic in their community.

Developers of a proposed mall will ask city commissioners in May to allow access to their Oviedo Crossing site from Winter Springs Boulevard.At issue is a 10-foot easement on the south side of the Tuscawilla community. The strip, part of a 1990 settlement over development issues in Tuscawilla, runs along the southern edge of Tuscawilla to State Road 426.Winter Springs commissioners, who could consider the mall developers' request May 9, must approve any use of the easement. That could block access to the proposed mall on A. Duda & Sons' land from Winter Springs Boulevard.

The Rouse Co., a national mall developer, is expected to brief Winter Springs commissioners at 3 p.m. today on its plans for a proposed shopping center at Oviedo Crossing along Red Bug Lake Road. The public can attend the meeting at City Hall, but they may not be given the opportunity to speak.The mall is planned for unincorporated Seminole County, but Winter Springs must approve a secondary entrance road to the mall from Winter Springs Boulevard.Burdines, Dillard and Gayfers have committed to be anchors for the 150-store mall.

Mother-Child Play Group, formerly called Mother's Support Group, of the Oak Forest neighborhood of Winter Springs, meets once a month so mothers can meet new friends while children have fun playing.The next meeting is at 10 a.m. Sept. 24 at Tuscawilla Park, Winter Springs Boulevard and Northern Way. Mothers are asked to supervise their own children.-- The next general membership meeting of the Oak Forest Homeowners Association starts at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 13 at the Wedgewood Tennis Villas Clubhouse.

Motorists should find alternate routes next week around Winter Springs Boulevard.The state Department of Transportation will close the four-lane road for intervals of up to 30 minutes Monday through Saturday at the site of the Central Florida GreeneWay between Winter Springs and Oviedo.Hubbard Construction Co. said the closings are necessary to deliver, unload and erect 50 concrete beams over the road, which leads to the Winter Springs community of Tuscawilla off State Road 426.Each beam is 120 feet long and weighs more than 70 tons.

Eight years ago residents of Tuscawilla, that huge up-scale development on Winter Springs' east side, succeeded in blocking construction of a Food Lion supermarket in their neighborhood. Though land had been set aside for a commercial district there, they didn't want the traffic it would generate.An eventual agreement allowed the store on the sprawling development's northern edge, but by then Food Lion had lost interest. To this day there is not a supermarket within all of Winter Springs.

ATTENDANCE AT Winter Springs' Aug. 9 City Commission meeting certainly was an eye-opener for the newcomer to city politics. A crowd, which spilled out into the lobby, for a well-publicized meeting concerning the Tuscawilla improvement area, was held captive for two hours until the issue was taken up. The commission's plan to wear us down worked, because some people left out of frustration.One would think a public hearing on a very evenly divided issue was to allow the commissioners time to consider both sides.

History has shown that whenever there is taxation without representation, ordinary people will rise to oppose the dictatorial politicians who seem to forget that they were elected to protect the rights of all the people, not just a few.At the Aug. 9 Winter Springs City Commission meeting, a petition with more than 500 names asking the commissioners to reconsider their pending action on the Tuscawilla beautification district was ignored completely. Such are the events that are unfolding in Winter Springs.

WINTER SPRINGS - City commissioners unanimously approved a controversial taxing district to install lighting and improve landscaping in the Tuscawilla community after more than three hours of raucous debate by residents who packed City Hall.Money raised through the beautification district will pay for $2.5 million worth of improvements to the community and roadways. Projects will include renovations to entrances along Winter Springs Boulevard at Tuskawilla and Seneca roads and at Tuskawilla and Trotwood roads.

Tuscawilla residents can soon expect to pay more for landscaping their community after narrowly approving a neighborhood beautification district.But the mail-in vote - expected by community leaders to pass easily - turned into a nail-biter because of heavy opposition from some Tuscawilla neighborhoods.Tuscawilla property owners within Winter Springs voted 883 to 874 to support a district.After the positive vote, Winter Springs city commissioners voted unanimously last week to move ahead with the taxing district.

Although the Tuscawilla Homeowners Association has dropped its suit against the city over the Oviedo Crossing mall, Winter Springs leaders are not ready to drop the issue.City commissioners want the group to pay the city's court costs.The homeowners association dropped the suit involving the city and developers of The Marketplace at Oviedo Crossing in May. City Attorney Frank Kruppenbacher filed papers last week to recover more than $2,000 in court costs for defending the suit. Those costs do not cover attorney fees.

Developers of the proposed Oviedo Crossing regional mall are considering a deal to give the city $200,000 and allow the city to annex land near the mall.The new deal is only a fraction of the $1 million plus that The Rouse Company, the mall builder, and The Viera Company, the landowner, were willing to pay Winter Springs when the mall wanted an entrance road from Winter Springs Boulevard. That road would have crossed a city-controlled easement.Seminole County commissioners rendered the first pact obsolete in April when they required a mall entrance road from State Road 426. The new road plan calls for a $5 million bridge over the Central Florida GreeneWay.

Mall developers could know by May 23 if a proposed 1.2 million square foot mall off Red Bug Lake Road clears a 10-foot hurdle.Winter Springs commissioners are expected to decide on Monday when to put the mall issue up for a vote. The commission's elder statesman John Torcaso urged fellow board members not to waste time.''I'm in favor of meeting on the 23rd and getting this thing over one way or another,'' Torcaso said.Last week, officials with A. Duda & Sons and the Rouse Company, a nationally known mall developer, gave a nearly two-hour presentation about Rouse and the proposed mall at Oviedo Crossing along Red Bug Lake Road at the Central Florida GreeneWay.

I CANNOT ALLOW statements made by Don Boyett regarding the proposed mall near Winter Springs to go unchallenged.He wrote that the mall planners tried to build an entry road to Aloma Avenue parallel to Winter Springs Boulevard, but that would place two intersections too near one another for traffic lights to work. I can think of two places with such situations, and they both work.One is on Red Bug Lake Road at Tuskawilla Road and just to the west at a shopping center entrance. The other is in Maitland on Horatio Avenue at Thistle and at Seneca.

City Council members Monday will consider changes to Oviedo's growth plan, including a policy that will set the rules for the possible extension of Pine Avenue to State Road 434.Council members are expected to adopt policies that one day would allow the rural Pine Avenue to become a two-lane road with a landscaped median.Currently, the road ends at Artesia Street, about a quarter-mile south of S.R. 434. City Manager Gene Williford said the city has no money to extend the road for at least five years.

The city has dropped plans to condemn a strip of land along Winter Springs Boulevard for a secondary mall entrance.Seminole County commissioners' approval of a proposed bridge from State Road 426 over the Central Florida GreeneWay into the parking area for The Marketplace at Oviedo Crossing does away with the need for a mall entrance from Winter Springs Boulevard.Many Tuscawilla residents objected to a mall entrance from Winter Springs Boulevard, saying it would encourage cut-though traffic in their community.